Archives

2008

Corruption is a problem that continues to plague developed and developing countries worldwide. Previous studies have explored the negative implications of corruption on several aspects of human development, but, despite its serious and long-lasting consequences, the impact of corruption on educational outcomes has started to receive attention only in recent years. This study empirically investigates the relationship between corruption and educational outcomes, using a sample of 50 countries. Study findings show that corruption is negatively associated with educational outcomes, after controlling for other variables, and suggest that continued efforts be made to control corruption.

This empirical research investigates trends in technology planning and funding in Florida’s K–12 public schools between the 2003–04 and 2005–06 academic years. Survey items that focused on funding and planning issues on Florida’s statewide school technology integration survey were analyzed using logistic models. Results indicate a significant increase in the number of schools revising their technology plans on a regular basis; a significant increase in the frequency with which Florida’s K–12 public schools are seeking funding for technology-related initiatives; a significant increase in parent, administrator, teacher, and student involvement in the technology planning process; and a significant decline in adequate funding for software and hardware needs. In addition, schools with low proportions of economically disadvantaged students sought and were awarded significantly more funds from donations and federal and state grants. Implications for educational leadership and policy are provided.

This study investigated school administrators’ perceptions of school improvement policies in a high-impact policy environment by measuring the impact of accountability, site-based management, professional development, and scheduling reform on the three dependent variables of a) academic outcomes, b) staff morale, and c) parent and community involvement. Using a convenience sampling method, 49 public school principals from Texas participated and an online survey was constructed to gather both quantitative (i.e., Likert scale) and qualitative (i.e., open ended response) data. The findings clearly point to principals, regardless of geographical district type and grade level school type, viewing less controversial and more intrinsically oriented policies (i.e., site-based management and professional development) as having a greater positive impact on outcomes as a whole than more radical alternatives (i.e., accountability and time and schedule reform). The evidence suggests that more aggressive school improvement policy approaches are likely failing to generate enough convincing outcomes to generate high commitment and confidence from school leaders. Further studies may look at the interaction of policy impact with minority student enrollments and with subgroup populations.

Possible threats to the validity of North Carolina’s accountability model used to predict academic growth were investigated in two ways: the state’s regression equations were replicated but updated to utilize current testing data and not that from years past as in the state’s current model; and the updated equations were expanded to include additional socioeconomic, financial, and demographic variables. The updated equations were found to explain a very low proportion of the variance in growth statewide, with R2 values ranging from .054 to .135. This suggests that the state’s model is extremely unpredictive of academic growth. The expanded equations were found to offer almost twice as much predictive power as the updated equations and, hence, the state’s model.

The authors explore the results of a study that assessed the types and frequency of legal issues encountered by counselors and counselors’ perceptions of their ability to respond to these issues. They also assessed whether the participants’ perceptions were related to practice setting, years of experience, completion of a course in ethics, recent completion of continuing education in ethics or legal issues, state licensure status, certification by the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC), and highest degree earned. Results demonstrate that counselors feel most prepared to deal with situations encountered most often, but that school counselors do not feel as prepared to face most ethical and legal issues.

Examining a popular political notion, this article presents results from a series of Spearman Rho calculations conducted to investigate relationships between countries’ rankings on international tests of mathematics and science and future economic competitiveness as measured by the 2006 World Economic Forum’s Growth Competitiveness Index (GCI). The study investigated the existence of relationships between international test rankings from three different time periods during the last 50 years of U.S. education policy development (i.e., 1957–1982, 1983–2000, and 2001–2006) and 2006 GCI ranks. It extends previous research on the topic by investigating how GCI rankings in the top 50 percent and bottom 50 percent relate to rankings on international tests for the countries that participated in each test. The study found that the relationship between ranks on international tests of mathematics and science and future economic strength is stronger among nations with lower-performing economies. Nations with strong economies, such as the United States, demonstrate a weaker, nonsignificant relationship.

This article unveils the largely unknown theories and practices of “cultural reattachment Africentric education leaders,” because many people of African descent are now choosing to reattach (in whole or in part) to aspects of certain African cultures (such as Wolof or Akan). The article offers a brief background of African-centered education, discusses the theories and philosophies of Africentric education leaders, and explicates the methodology of this Africentric research project. Africentric education leaders are concerned about black communities becoming more avaricious but less unified; therefore, they offer African cultural ethos to combat both miseducation and individualism. This article also provides policy recommendations for instituting Africentric education as a comprehensive approach to address myriad problems being faced by black children and communities. In this research I advocate for Africentric theory and also employ ethnographic methods as I examine Africentric education practice.

This small-scale pilot study investigated the role of school principals in the induction of new teachers in Ontario, Canada. Building upon the theoretical framework of Bolman and Deal (2002), as well as interviews, document analysis, and review of extant literature, the following findings were established: (a) Principals expressed that the educative mentorship of novices requires the engagement of the entire school community; and (b) Principals, veterans, and novices saw teaching as an intellectual, moral, and political endeavor that required their collective involvement. We suggest that principals employ the notion of “communities of practice” to instill a culture of support for new teacher induction.

If teaching at its best is an art (Davis, 2005; Sarason, 1999; Grumet, 1993; Eisner, 1985; Barone, 1983; Greene, 1971; Smith 1971), then instructional leadership of teaching, done best, must also be based in art (Behar-Horenstein, 2004; Klein, 1999; Eisner, 1983 & 1998a; Blumberg, 1989; Barone, 1998). The author examines possible applications of an arts-based approach to instructional leadership (Blumberg, 1989; Pajak, 2003; Barone, 1998). Building on the research base regarding instructional leadership as art form, the author combines the Feldman Method (Feldman, 1995) of critique, Eisner’s (1998) notion of connoisseurship, and Ragans’ (2005) articulation of the elements of art and the principles of design to construct a practice that captures both the technical craft of teaching and the aesthetic dimensions evident in artistic pedagogy (Eisner, 1983; Sarason, 1999). Preliminary results of an ongoing implementation study are presented.

2007

This paper explores how a cross-cultural project responded to the need for new Holocaust educational materials for the Republic of Latvia through the method of curriculum deliberation. Analysis of interview, observational, and document data drawn from seven curriculum writers and numerous project members suggest that curriculum deliberation helped awaken a controversial and silenced history while attending to a wide range of needs and concerns for a variety of stakeholders. The findings highlight structural features that empowered the curriculum writers as they engaged in protracted rumination, reflected upon competing norms, and considered the nuances of the curriculum problem in relation to implementation. Understanding the process, challenges, and promises of cross-cultural curriculum deliberation holds significance for educators, curricularists, and educational researchers wishing to advance teaching and learning within silenced histories and controversial issues.

This research article examines the intensity of satisfaction in the teaching career amongst the secondary school teaching workforce and identifies some work-related factors associated with job satisfaction. The main focus of this study is to probe the impact of the hygiene and motivation factors as a predictor of job satisfaction and see how they align with other existing studies. For the purpose of this study, hygiene factors are factors that cause dissatisfaction and motivation factors are factors that cause employees to be satisfied with their job. A questionnaire was used for data gathering, and multiple statistical procedures were employed in the analysis. The findings revealed that both the extrinsic (hygiene) and the intrinsic (motivation) factors are predictors of job satisfaction. In particular, this research work is written for educational administrators, policymakers and planners that are interested in empirical information methods that might help them improve secondary schooling in Nigeria and elsewhere.

In the United States, 48 of the 50 states have adopted standards-based policies that attempt to reform teacher education and licensing from an input-based course and credit system to one based on outcomes and performance through their authority to approve preparation programs. This article draws from qualitative, collective case study research that examines implementation tensions between the new program approval policies and the program administrators, faculty, and students of teaching at three Wisconsin teacher-preparing institutions.The findings suggest that stakeholders' beliefs and sensemaking mediate the policy directives to the point that program completers continue to receive the same preparation despite reform efforts. The theoretical constructs to support this claim are presented and potentially shed light on stakeholder mediation in other education reform efforts.

This single case study of a school district responding to federal and state accountability pressures presents a rare analysis of educational decision making as it happens. It focuses in particular on the challenges and choices of making a strategic decision and the transition from that decision into implementation. Using a conceptual framework of multiple stakeholder decision making and a mixed methodology, this article demonstrates who has influence in decision making, how that influence directs decision making, and the effects of the ways in which strategic change decisions are communicated. This particular school district formulated its change decision collaboratively but issued an implementation directive to the schools that was hierarchical in nature. The result is rapid implementation with some unresolved problems. Practical implications suggest that education leaders can be thoughtful about aligning transition choices with desired outcomes. Research implications lead to further examination of implementation consequences stemming from transition choices.

A key assumption of NCLB appears to be that assessment data in and of itself can foster or promote change. Specifically, the supposition is that by requiring assessment data to be reported yearly, schools will be motivated - and will have the ability - to address those areas where student achievement is lagging. This assumption rests on the notion that educator competence in understanding and utilizing such data will result in academic success. Testing this assumption with empirical evidence is an important component of researching the efficacy of current accountability policies and practices in general. Over the past three years we have been involved in a series of empirical examinations of accountability. Each of these studies has been aimed at gathering varied perspectives on and about accountability, ranging from superintendents to principals to teachers. Our research examines education accountability at three interconnected layers: district administrators, principals, and teachers. This nested data set (superintendents were surveyed, as were their principals, and their principals’ teachers) allows for not only an examination of the perceptions and reflections of the members of each group but also for an evaluation of the consistency of those beliefs across the members of the educational community. This study will present findings from research projects that speak to each of these levels, focusing on how each understands education accountability and how those meanings are consistent across groups and to what degree.

This paper describes the crucial issues and challenges facing Afghanistan’s universities as they begin the demanding task of rebuilding and restructuring their university system after two decades of war and civil unrest. The setting for this qualitative study is a four-day professional development conference for Afghan university presidents and academic deans sponsored and funded by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the Afghanistan Ministry of Higher Education. Cooperative Studies (an NGO, not-for-profit educational organization located in Kansas City) provided a team of academics to Kabul, Afghanistan, to offer professional development workshops. Using the Grounded Theory Methodology as a theoretical framework for this research, data was derived from interactive sessions, questionnaires, informal dialogue, small group sessions and question and answer sessions; the perspectives of the 39 Afghan academic leaders are presented as they describe the problems facing university administrators in their country today. Findings identify these challenges and center on 1) the lack of autonomy; 2) the need for qualified faculty; 3) concerns regarding students’ access and preparation; and 4) concerns about funding and budget issues. Based on these findings, policy suggestions and recommendations are provided.

A dilemma administrators continually face is whether to continue offering degree programs despite low student uptake, especially because producing reliable cost data to aid decision making can prove difficult. Often, a university determines a standard cost per credit or unit and uses this figure as a basis for computing the total cost of running a degree program. This is then compared to a revenue stream and the difference, whether positive or negative, is used in decision making. However, this method of computing costs, although appealing for its simplicity, may fail to capture the effects of economies that may arise as one school or college services another. In this paper, we use a basic cost accounting methodology applied to the higher education system of the Philippines to compute for a cost per degree per student for a sample of public and private universities. Although the methodology is more time consuming, the computed figures are deemed closer to actual costs and, thus, we argue, are more reliable as inputs to financial decision making.

This project was the second phase of a two-phase study of teachers’ knowledge of community in an urban, private boys’ day school in Canada. The first phase examined a teacher’s perception of her classroom community, and this phase asked teachers and administrators in the same school about their perceptions of school community.We found that the school created and implemented an organizational structure designed to foster and sustain a professional community. However, administrators and teachers conceptualized, understood, and experienced community in different ways. Administrators saw community as a management tool to generate support for the school’s objectives. Teachers experienced community as social support that served as a remedy for professional isolation. Neither group based its view on community as a capacity-building, reflective process leading to a generative professional community.

2006

The purpose of this paper is to construct a conceptual framework of educational decision making that accounts for critical factors in decision processes. Elements of the framework include multiple stakeholders’ objectives and influence, varying degrees of collaboration, the concept of coupling between decision makers and stakeholders, and feedback as decisions evolve. The theoretical and conceptual contributions of this paper help to fill in an important gap in the decision making and leadership literature by explaining the dynamics of multiple actors involved in a series of decisions over time. This conceptual framework is developed by presenting areas of inquiry that are not addressed in the current literature and responding to them in a step-wise fashion. A brief school district case is used for illustration. The paper concludes with research and practice applications of the conceptual framework.

This study involved a survey of Texas public-school principals and certified librarians’ attitudes, perceptions and experiences with regard to school library policy for media selection and procedures for responding to complaints against library media. Analysis of the data included a methodology of mixed-methods explanatory design. Selection of the principals and certified librarians was proportionate and stratified according to the state’s 20 Education Service Center regions. Of the 1,036 Independent School Districts that employed the state population of 10,014 principals and certified librarians, 275 Independent School Districts (26.5 percent) allowed participation in the survey. Though random sampling of the state population had not been possible, the demographic and employment characteristics of the study sample were comparable to those of the state population. Two key findings were (a) that the legal opinions of principals and certified librarians were useful predictors of their opinions of library media selection policy and complaint procedures and (b) that the principals’ appreciation of selection policy and complaint procedures sometimes differed from the librarians’ because of the principals’ different legal perspective of library selection policy and complaint procedures.

Researchers examined the relationship between small-class participation in the first four years of school and course-taking patterns in high school. Using original data from Tennessee's Project STAR (Student-Teacher Achievement Ratio) with high school transcripts for 3,922 students from the STAR experiment, the hypothesis that class size is related to the amount and level of coursework taken in mathematics, science, and foreign language was tested. Results indicated that students who spent three or more years in small classes took more foreign language courses, higher-level foreign language courses, and higher-level mathematics courses than did students in full-size classes. The possibility that small-class participation would benefit low-SES students more than high-SES students was also explored, but no evidence was found of an SES-specific effect. The results are discussed in terms of (a) using class-size policies to promote the taking of advanced courses in high school, and (b) the need to consider long-term outcomes when evaluating class-size reduction initiatives.